Les Perles Ota

Les Perles Ota was a Parisian perfumery active between the World Wars located at 120 avenue des Champs-Elysées, Paris, France. I saw the Ota name advertised in 1928 and 1929 newspapers as "Ota Pearl Perfume Sets". 

The perfumes of Ota:

• Chypre
• Bouquet
• Violette
• Ambre
• Lilas

Bottles:

Ota's perfumes were presented in pearlescent bottles made by the Nesle Normandeuse glassworks. The loveliest of presentations was their Bouquet "necklaces" composed bottles filled with assorted floral scents. These 1" clear glass bottles were nestled into their box, were detachable and filled with perfume. One such example was all pearlized flacons and another example is a glamorous necklace of smaller pearl bottles alternating with square bottles simulating faceted blue sapphires. The pearl necklaces could be had in sets of three, six or ten pearls. The necklaces were housed in luxurious jeweler's boxes, lined in gold satin and velvet. Single pearl bottles were certainly offered, like the other bottles, these too, had a kid leather covered glass stopper.

Just after World War I, French glass designer Andre Jollivet started working with different finishes for perfume bottles, he was looking for something completely new and innovative and started working with a substance called “essence d‘orient”. This pearlized tincture was first created by a French artist named M. Jacquin in 1680 and is actually made from guanine crystallites found in the ground up scales of the bleak or herring and mixed with the natural oils of the fish to create a solution named “Essence D‘Orient“.

It takes a hundred tons of herring to extract one ton of herring scales in order to produce a single pound of essence d’Orient. This beautiful, iridescent coating was normally applied to glass beads to mimic Oriental pearls during jewelry making. Jollivet must have seen the potential to create interesting perfume bottle presentations and employed the Nesle Normandeuse Glassworks to create the bottles with the lustrous pearly finish. He improved upon the essence d’orient substance and managed to create a new resistant and very realistic pearlized finish “laitance de hareng” (herring roe).

Ota, along with several perfume companies in France employed this beautiful finish in the making of their perfumes. Companies such as Volnay, Dorfeuil, Isabey, Rochambeau, Pleville, Parfums de Marcy and others all used variations of these bottles for their presentations.  

I wonder if the Ota name is related to Ota Polacek, a Czechoslovakian immigrant, who established Parfums Cherigan at 120 avenue des Champs-Elysées, Paris in 1927. This was also the address of another perfumery company, Les Parfums de Marcy. Les Parfums de Marcy was established around 1910 possibly by Lazare Bloch at a small factory at Les Lilas, France. After becoming more successful, a shop was opened at 120 avenue des Champs-Elysees in Paris, the same address as Cherigan, Ed. Pinaud, Forvil and Ota.

Les Parfums de Marcy and Ota both used pearlized bottles in their presentations during the same time period c1927-1929. Both companies appeared to use the same presentation boxes, complete with a crown logo above their names stamped on the inside of the box lids. Paul Heymann was the inventor who created Les Parfums de Marcy's presentations and the pearl presentation for Delettrez. Were all these companies affiliated to one another?

It was not unusual for perfumery companies to be affiliated to additional brands. Such was the case with Ybry, Fioret and Myon, companies by Simon Jaroslawski. 

In my research, I found the name of Ota Polacek of Seine, France, who in 1953, was involved in the "Ota Polacek, Seine, France, production of mother-of-pearl or enameled surfaces by adding pearl essence, dyes, metal powder or crystals or tinsel, glass to synthetic resins, which are then subjected to a cold iridescent treatment. The surface flacons are hardened or painted."

Bonney, Therese. 1925. Therese Bonney photographs, 1925-1937. Paris, France, 1925-30. One-bottle and ten-bottle boxes. Perfume by Ota, Paris. Colorized by me.